Accounts payable is the work of a consummate professional. You are responsible for keeping track of all the various expenses that your business incurs, so you can be sure to keep them as close to checkbook-level as possible.
A good accounts payable resume should be detailed, clear, and easy to read—and it should be written in a way that makes it easy for employers to understand what you’re capable of doing.
To help you write your own resume, we’ve broken down the main points from our reviews of accounts payable resumes. Let’s get started.
Methodology
To build our accounts payable resume guide, we analyzed 96 accounts payable resumes and 51 accounts payable job postings using machine learning to identify the most common elements of good accounts payable resumes and the things employers ask for most often when hiring.
We’ve also built a database of over 600,000 publicly available resumes from different professions & analyzed how the best resumes were written.
It’s always good to make your resume unique and to follow best practices. This guide will help you understand what you need to include to make it competitive based on a large set of data from real resumes and real job listings.
You can read about our methodology in more detail here.
Accounts payable resume objective data + accounts payable objective examples
Do accounts payable’s need to include an objective on their resume?
The general advice for resume objectives and professional summaries is still true (read our guide on resume objectives), but here’s what the data says for accounts payable’s specifically:
- 41% of accounts payable’s included an objective section
- 28% of accounts payable’s included a professional summary
- 41% of accounts payable’s included neither an objective nor a summary
Accounts payable resume objective examples
Sensible and collaborative accounts payable professional able to flourish independently or as part of a team. Seeking to join a reputable company as a accountant to help meet business goals.
Lifelong accounts payable professional looking for a position. Strong record working collaborative and executing internal systems to meet company-wide targets .
A dependable finance professional with 9+ years of experience and a passion for excellence.
To secure a position as an accounts payable professional in an organization that will allow me to take advantage of my skills and abilities, contribute to an important mission, and collaborate with smart people in my field.
To obtain a position which allows me to utilize my managerial, administrative, and organizational skills to promote growth and foster professional development. To be an asset and an effective individual where I can complement my skills and contribute in the most effective manner.
Skills for accounts payable resumes
The best skills to put on any resume will be the ones most relevant to the job, but based on our analysis, these skills are among the most common on accounts payable resumes, which means they can be a strong foundation and are probably good to list on yours (if you’ve got them).
To learn more about how to fully leverage your skills section, check out our guide to resume skills.
*Note: our machine learning essentially picks up common words and phrases in skill sections, so you may have to extrapolate what skills are needed based on your own professional experience.
Most common accounts payable resume skills
Most common hard skills for accounts payable resumes: management, accounting, sales, operations, and finance.
Most common soft skills for accounts payable resumes: analytical and critical-thinking skills , communication skills, detail oriented, math skills, and organizational skills.
Other good accounts payable resume skills
- General ledger entry
- Data entry
- Knowledge of trade credit terms
- Awareness of cash conversion cycle
- Advanced Excel ability
- SAP accounts payable module
- Sage X3
- Oracle Netsuite
- Accounts payable processes & management
- Corporate accounting & bookkeeping
- GAAP standards
- Government regulations
- Vendor negotiations
- Records organization
- Journal entries
- Team building
Accounts payable skills section examples
Note: we formatted all these examples the same way here for the sake of simplicity, but you can read about skills section formatting in our guide to resume formatting.
Accounts payable skills example 1
General ledger entry | management | knowledge of trade credit terms | awareness of cash conversion cycle | accounting | sales| advanced excel ability
Accounts payable skills example 2
Data entry | analytical and critical-thinking skills | sap accounts payable module | communication skills | sage x3 | detail oriented | oracle netsuite
Accounts payable skills example 3
Records organization | accounts payable processes & management | organizational skills | math skills | gaap standards | communication skills | government regulations
Work experience for accounts payable resumes
Work experience is perhaps the most important part of any resume, and it’s no different for accounts payable resumes.
For more detailed info on work experience sections specifically, check out our guide for writing a good work experience resume section and our guide for building a resume with no experience.
In general, when applying for accounts payable jobs, you want to highlight the experience most relevant to each specific position. Here are a few samples.
Accounts payable work experience examples
WORK EXPERIENCE
Sr. Associate Accounts Payable
Gekko & Co, 2020-2022
Responsibilities
- Assess financial operations, identify risks and challenges, and make best-practices recommendations to management
- Compute taxes owed, prepare tax returns, and ensure that taxes are paid properly and on time
- Examine financial statements to ensure that they are accurate and comply with laws and regulations
- Inspect account books and accounting systems for efficiency and use of accepted accounting procedures and identify potential risks for fraud
- Organize, analyze, and maintain financial records
WORK EXPERIENCE
Associate Accounts Payable
Candor Corp, 2016-2022
Responsibilities
- Suggest ways to reduce costs, enhance revenues, and improve profits
- Maintain meticulous records of outstanding payables
- Provide other clerical support necessary to pay the obligations of the organization
- Ensure the accuracy of an organization’s financial documents for payment, auditing and tax purposes
WORK EXPERIENCE
Accounts Payable Intern
Sanguine Services, 2007-2012
Responsibilities
- Protect businesses against unintentional overpayment
- Practice effective monitoring to ensure payments are made to vendors in a timely manner
- Keeping track of all payments and expenditures, including payroll, purchase orders, invoices, statements
- Reconciling processed work by verifying entries and comparing system reports to balances
- Maintaining historical records
Education for accounts payable resumes
Unless you’re applying for academic positions or don’t have any work experience, your work history will be more important than your education.
Still, education is usually listed on resumes, and often, accounts payable job postings list a minimum education requirement.
See our guide for education on resumes for more detailed information.
Data from our sample of 96 accounts payable resumes
- 4% accounts payable resumes listed an associate’s degree
- 68% accounts payable resumes listed a bachelor’s degree
- 25% accounts payable resumes included a masters degree
- 0% accounts payable resumes mentioned a doctoral degree
Accounts payable resume education examples
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Management Studies
Mount St. Joseph University, 2020
Awards & Honors
- Summa Cum Laude
- Phi Beta Kappa
- AP Scholar
EDUCATION
Associate of Applied Arts
Loma Linda University, 2016
Certifications for accounts payable resumes
Not every job requires certifications, but certifications can almost always improve your odds of landing an interview, and there certifications for (or related to) nearly all jobs.
In fact, we wrote a playbook for listing certifications on resumes.
Here are a few certifications that can help accounts payable’s specifically, according to CareerOneStop.
Accounts payable certification examples
CERTIFICATIONS
Certified Hospitality Accountant Executive
Hospitality Financial & Technology Professionals, 2020
Certified Quality Auditor
American Society for Quality, 2016
CERTIFICATIONS
Certified Hospitality Accountant Executive, Certified Risk Manager, Certified Quality Auditor
Accounts payable resume action verbs
After analyzing over 600,000 resumes, we built a huge library of of action verbs and cross-referenced it with our sample of 96 accounts payable resumes and job postings to find which action verbs are most commonly used by accounts payable’s and accounts payable employers.
The most common action verbs on accounts payable resumes are: prepare, report, perform, review, and process.
The most common action verbs on accounts payable job postings are: assist, manage, direct, implement, and resolve.
Other action verbs for accounts payable resumes:
- Track
- Lead
- Organize
- Achieve
- Develop
- Monitor
- Program
- Forecast
- Head
- Handle
- Track
- Lead
- Organize
- Achieve
- Develop
Full accounts payable resume example
We created a couple complete accounts payable resume examples to help you see how all this fits together. Yours can be better than this. This is just a basic illustration.
To see “perfect” examples, check out our showcase of resume examples.
Accounts payable resume example
Rebecca Allen
Accounts Payable
3821 Elk Street, Newport Beach, CA
Experience as an accounts payable coordinator. Great Expertise in microsoft office, financial reporting. Written and spoken fluency in English.
WORK EXPERIENCE
Sr. Associate Accounts Payable
Gekko & Co, 2020-2022
Responsibilities
- Responsible for accounts payable for 8 locations
- Verified invoices from POS system are correct and imported into accounting system
- Processed and coded 200+ daily invoices using accurate G/L accounts
- Prepared weekly check runs as well as daily manual checks
Associate Accounts Payable
Candor Corp, 2016-2022
Responsibilities
- Balanced accounts payable sub-ledger to general ledger as part of month-end close
- Established credit accounts with new and existing vendors as requested by shop and/ or upon the opening of a new shop
- Reconciled vendor statements
- Assisted with paperless filing
Accounts Payable Intern
Sanguine Services, 2007-2022
Responsibilities
- Analyze invoices and order forms, and record data
- Tracking all donations and making weekly bank deposits
- Receive payments and credit client accounts with the amounts to settle or pay
- Preparing dashboard & consolidating the report for key metrics for all the departments every week for the senior management
CERTIFICATIONS
Certified Financial Examiner
Society of Financial Examiners, 2020
Certified International Tax Analyst
American Academy of Financial Management, 2016
SKILLS
General ledger entry | advanced excel ability | sales | detail oriented | analytical and critical-thinking skills | finance | accounts payable processes & management
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Management Studies
Mount St. Joseph University, 2020
Associate of Applied Arts
Loma Linda University, 2016
What experts say about accounts payable resumes
Before we wrap it up, we want to leave you with some advice from other experts we admire.
“Accounting certifications should be the first thing that a hiring manager sees on your resume. So right at the top you want to include any accounting certifications that you have that are relevant to whatever role you’re going for.” – Five Things to Include on Your Accounting Resume
” Research shows that the ideal resume length is 475 to 600 words 77% of resumes fell outside of that range.” – Write an Incredible Resume: 5 Golden Rules!
” One of the very first things that you need to have your resume if you want that accounting job is customer service experience … if you are a staff accountant that customer service experience comes in when you’re talking to other people on your team when you’re reaching out to vendors for billing.” – Six Things Your Accounting Resume Needs| Successful Accounting Resume
Want help with your accounts payable resume?
If you’ve ever struggled to write an accounts payable resume, you know what a nightmare it can be.
But we’re here to tell you: it doesn’t have to be that way! With our guide, we’ve given you all the building blocks of an accounts payable resume, and now it’s up to you to put them together in the best way possible. If there are any parts of our guide that feel confusing, just let us know—we want to help make this process less intimidating for everyone!
